Torture Talk.
What does your mind look like?
Does the Devil encourage suicide? Of course. That’s a given. Take yourselves out, by all means, just don’t blame me for it. If you need my help to die you don’t want to.
I do specialize in creating the will to die, I like to bring you as close as I can, then give you a sudden reprieve. Nothing works like a thrown rope; you’ll never forget how it felt in your hand.
Mortals think of torture in purely physical terms, your greatest efforts at mind control have spectacularly failed, you’re outdone by anything that jiggles on camera. The only reason physical torture is still a thing with you is the very real need you have to perform it.
Think of how many centuries used it as a source of truth, if it doesn’t embarrass you, it should. We won’t mention pathetic modern attempts, waterboarding, so crude I can hardly bear to picture it. Look to the past for the real stuff. Think of an elephant trained to slowly crush a man to death, taking days to do it sometimes, if you had the right elephant. Read the old books, each session recorded with charming indifference by one who likes it but doesn’t want to get dirty.
Better yet, read the undoubted master. Not me, of course, I might give you a glimpse but I’m discreet by nature. I keep the deeds of my left hand from my right. In your world there is only one man worthy to be called the Father of Evil, I’m talking about the good Marquis, of course.
His works aren’t for the faint of heart, let me say. Even you, lover of the Devil as you are, might find yourself wishing you had never looked into his mind.
Sadism, a love of inflicting pain for its own sake, my definition, as a Master. Succinct, but it hardly captures the depth of the man’s mind. The inflicting of pain as a Philosophy, as a Way of Life, as the highest Virtue, something to strive toward, this is what he created. Those are some Satanic thoughts indeed.
The man himself though, nothing to waste time with. Such fervour in any cause leaves you one dimensional, wanting a great deal more to make you palatable. That weighty brain all taken up with creative evil. Could he carry on a decent conversation? No. His pitiless accomplices? Still French, still overdressed and overconfident, knowing nothing of personal hygiene. I’d sooner consort with the first toothless crone I come across, it’s a different kind of dirty.
His chosen victims were invariably children or women who aspired to goodness, which he despised more than anything, also for its own sake. His punishments for such a flaw can only be read by the strongest, I found them coarse and messy, both live and in print. No gift for words, no urge to improve himself in that respect, but I suppose he knew he had no need to.
In Hell, we raise a glass to him once in a while, but we keep him chained and gagged.
“Building the Ship of Theseus” by Manes That’s Manes as in ancient souls of the Dead, for those who don’t know. To them I ask, ‘where are you and why aren’t you giving us more’?